President Trump isn’t one to back down when he sets his mind on a thing, but I have proof positive today that he is not above changing his mind.
Without a doubt, the ongoing talks with Iran on how this thing ends is still very much in flux.
And that includes the final disposition of any enriched Uranium, as well as the nuclear ‘dust’ created during last year’s attack by American B-2 Spirit Bombers.
For his part, President Trump has been very vocal about his intent to retrieve that nuclear material… one way, or another.
But his remarks today — along with tantalizing information he dropped about some high powered US Space Force technology — may have reframed his thinking on the need to do so.
Here’s where we were back in April, when the President told Fox News what he’d been saying all along about the question of nuclear ‘dust’ in Iran:
President Trump on Iran turning over their “nuclear dust”:
TRUMP: “We’re taking it. We're taking it, very simple. We’re going in with Iran… We’ll take it after the agreement is signed.” pic.twitter.com/fmCE7dhfU7
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 18, 2026
Here’s a full screen version of that clip for convenience:
President Trump on Iran turning over their “nuclear dust”:
TRUMP: “We’re taking it. We’re taking it, very simple. We’re going in with Iran… We’ll take it after the agreement is signed.” pic.twitter.com/fmCE7dhfU7
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 18, 2026
But twice this week the President has indicated that might not be necessary.
First, on Wednesday, when asked about reports that Iran had agreed the US could go in and remove that material, he pointed out how wishy-washy the Iranians were being.
One day they agree… the next day it’s as if the previous discussion never took place.
Check out this clip from the Oval Office in which he described that back-and-forth with Iran on Wednesday.
But he also dropped a hint as to his changing view on the importance of the nuclear material:
⚡️🇺🇸🇮🇷 — President Trump, asked about a possible U.S.–Iran arrangement to locate and remove buried nuclear material (“nuclear dust”):
“Well, it depends on what day you’re talking about. It’s one of the things we talk about. It’s very overrated. I’m the one that overrated it.”➡️… pic.twitter.com/z6SnlC6V3y
— Jack Straw (@JackStr42679640) June 3, 2026
Did you catch that part about the entire issue of the nuclear ‘dust’ being “overrated”?
He even said point blank that he was the one who “overrated it”; seeming to indicate he had new information about the importance of pulling that material out of the ground.
Jump ahead one day — Thursday — and though he was quick to emphasize that Iran couldn’t stop us from retrieving that material “if we wanted”…
He very plainly articulated that there doesn’t seem to be a REASON to, according to this report from Reuters:
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said that Washington did not need a deal with Iran to get enriched uranium from the country.
“We could get it right now. I don’t think they could stop us if we wanted, but there’s no reason to. It’s entombed,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump also said that he did not want to meet with Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
ADVERTISEMENTBut he added that if Washington and Tehran reached a deal, it was possible that the two would meet and added: “If it happened … I’d be respectful”.
Later in the day, a clip of President Trump giving a very comprehensive answer to that issue popped up.
This was in response to a question from Peter Doocy during a presser in the Oval Office on whether the President thinks that he ‘needs’ a deal with Iran to go get that material out.
Or, as the President has floated more than once… is the US military being considered as an option to simply (though maybe not easily…) go in and take it.
Here’s that clip from Thursday, which includes the President’s reference to Space Force tech.
That technological capability may have changed the game on this issue completely:
Fox’s @PDoocy: “And I’ve got a question about the nuclear dust. So, the bombers go in. They entomb a lot of this enriched uranium. At this point, do you need a deal with Iran to go get it, or have you thought about just a covert, daring send in the SEALs, send in the Rangers.”… pic.twitter.com/PLV9USCQQ3
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 4, 2026
The President detailed precisely “nine” of these cameras fielded by Space Force — presumably a wildly advanced satellite-based monitoring capability.
So not only is President Trump indicating that he may have put more weight on the nuclear ‘dust’ issue to begin with than might have been appropriate…
But the fact that he can apparently WATCH those sites in real time regardless of Iran’s take on the matter has minimized what previously could have been a big leverage for the Ayatollah — or whoever is actually running the show in Tehran.
Twice during that clip the President mentioned Jimmy Carter, who infamously left American hostages languishing in the hands of the Iranians during his term.
The “period of a week or two” for a retrieval operation to play out could end up even worse than American hostages — it could end in a lot of American deaths.
That was one point President Trump kept bringing up in his answer to Doocy, and one likely reason he was willing to rely on those Space Force cameras, as was reported by the New York Post:
President Trump on Thursday said the Space Force has “very powerful cameras” trained on Iran’s destroyed nuclear sites, scouting for any attempts Iran may take to break out the enriched uranium still buried deep below.
The president said he considered sending troops on a secret mission to retrieve the uranium “right at the very beginning … before we destroyed their entire military.”
But the president has since assessed that the buried uranium poses no immediate threat to the US, as the facilities in which they are held sit an estimated 260 to 330 feet below ground with no obvious ways Iran could get it without tipping off the Americans.
He also explained that it would be a complex, lengthy ordeal to free the uranium — even for highly trained US special forces.
“It’s not like it’s not like Venezuela where you go in, you’re there for a matter of minutes and you’re out,” Trump said.
“This is different. You have to be there for two weeks, you’d need massive equipment. You’d have to airlift the equipment, and you know you’re in a war zone.”
The president said such a measure would take “a period of a week to two weeks.”
“You would have had a major construction operation,” he said. (Emphasis added.)
As I said at the outset — the talks between Iran and the US are ongoing and subject to daily ups and downs, according to President Trump.
And though the President is leaning against a US military operation to bring that nuclear material out WITHOUT a deal being struck…
Even in the last few days, he reiterated he didn’t think the Iranians could stop the US if the American military made a grab for it.
It now remains to be seen if any deal reached between the White House and Iran will include a plan to remove that ‘dust’, as the President has pushed for all along.
Or does the technological capacity of Space Force truly make that a moot issue at this point?
In the thick of things, I find it hard to decipher at times what President Trump is really fixated on… and what he is using for hype — or a tool for leverage while his “art of the deal” plays out.
I honestly still don’t know whether he’s willing to leave that nuclear ‘dust’ in place, or not.
But that is sure to be a contentious issue going forward, regardless of the President’s final stance.
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